Strategy – Carrick Marketing Communicationshttp://carrickmarketingcommunications.com
Strategies, Tactics and Advice for Marketing Business ServicesWed, 31 Jan 2018 15:21:55 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.8.5Short Term Pressures Are Shortchanging Brand Buildinghttp://carrickmarketingcommunications.com/short-term-pressures-are-shortchanging-brand-building
http://carrickmarketingcommunications.com/short-term-pressures-are-shortchanging-brand-building#respondMon, 16 Nov 2015 16:22:44 +0000http://carrickmarketingcommunications.com/?p=546Marketers at growing businesses are typically focused simultaneously on tactical marketing programs to fuel revenue AND brand building. While these two types of activities shouldn’t be mutually exclusive, the reality is that brand-building is often shortchanged.

Why? Building a brand takes time, resources, strong marketing leadership, support of the CEO and a big picture vision. On the other hand, tactical marketing campaigns appeal to the quarter-by-quarter outlook that many businesses, like it or not, subscribe to. Additionally, tactical programs produce results that are easier to measure, thereby making them more popular among marketers pressured to demonstrate their value to employers.

M&C Saatchi chief strategy officer Justin Graham is now calling brand building a “dying art”. Read more about what he and other leading agency executives are saying about the death of brand building in this recent post in Australia’s AdNews.

]]>http://carrickmarketingcommunications.com/short-term-pressures-are-shortchanging-brand-building/feed0External Surveys – Internal Considerationshttp://carrickmarketingcommunications.com/external-surveys-internal-considerations
Thu, 23 Jan 2014 16:49:44 +0000http://carrickmarketingcommunications.com/?p=517In working with clients to develop and execute customer surveys, the initial focus tends to be external. That makes perfect sense since the primary goal is to gauge what the outside world thinks of your products and services. However, there are a whole bunch of internal considerations that deserve a close look before launching this type of external program, especially if you are just starting to survey.

The list below, while not all-inclusive – covers some of the main questions to ask and answer before launching a customer satisfaction program:

Overall, how will the survey process sync with your corporate culture? Does it, for instance, support your mission statement?

How will you communicate the goals of the survey to your team? Will they buy into a program that may, for instance, ask potentially sensitive questions about the performance of their department?

How will you communicate the results to your team? Will you be transparent in sharing them across the organization, even if they may reflect poorly on some departments or processes?

Will you offer training and/or coaching to departments/teams where the surveys uncover room for improvement?

How will you act upon potentially negative information emanating from the survey? Positive information?

Will the survey be tied to individual performance reviews?

What is the chain of command to resolve issues highlighted by the survey results? In other words, who “owns” the action items that the survey may uncover?

]]>New Advice on Driving Growth at Second Stage Companieshttp://carrickmarketingcommunications.com/new-advice-on-driving-growth-at-second-stage-companies
Mon, 02 Dec 2013 19:30:35 +0000http://carrickmarketingcommunications.com/?p=512A startling fact: only one out of nine start-ups make it through the initial launch phase. In fact, many of our clients would agree that the start-up phase is relatively easy compared to growing your company in a sustainable fashion to reach the next critical stage. The “second stage” can be exceptionally challenging as entrepreneurs look for new sources of capital, seek outside advisers, hire a team, build a corporate culture, figure out their marketing strategy and…well, the list can often seem endless.

In a new and thoughtful book, “Second Stage Entrepreneurship“, Dan Weinfurter offers ten proven strategies for driving growth. Dan’s impressive credentials and 25 year track record as a serial entrepreneur, combined with his story-telling abilities, make this a great practical read for anyone charged with leading a company on a path to maturation. The book touches on ten topics that absolutely need to be core concerns of any company striving to grow beyond ten to one hundred employees and/or with revenues from one to fifty million dollars. Put it on your “must read” list today.

]]>So Many Choices, So Little Timehttp://carrickmarketingcommunications.com/so-many-choices-so-little-time
Sat, 31 Dec 2011 18:33:28 +0000http://carrickmarketingcommunications.com/?p=356Marketing and PR, in the very simplest terms, are about delivering the most important message about your business to the right audiences in the most direct way possible. Those audiences are – obviously – your customers and prospects but may also include investors, your current and future employees, analysts, alliance partners, industry influencers, resellers, channel partners, trade associations and so on. Given all the various groups you need to reach and the multitude of communications methods available to you, how do you choose what to communicate to whom…and when and how?

There are lots of choices but resources are almost always limited. Ultimately, success depends on getting really disciplined about prioritization. In most instances, focusing on customers is the #1 priority for any business. Within that category, it makes most sense to focus on those most likely to buy from you, as well as current customers who potentially can buy more from you.

But, as many of our start-up clients can attest, it’s very easy to become distracted. Many tell us they spend 2-3 times the amount of time (and resources) communicating with their investors, when they KNOW they should be spending just as much effort on customer marketing and PR. Unfortunately prioritization often works better on paper than in practice!

So how do you really prioritize your efforts, given the multiple messages to multiple audiences that you need to reach? Here are three tips to help you stay the course.

Create a communications matrix. This is a grid that lists all audiences you need to reach down the left column and key messages, key communication vehicles and a timeline listed across the top. The purpose is to have a simple, “at-a-glance” document that indicates to whom you are communicating using what tools (newsletter, email, twitter, etc.) and how often. Perhaps most importantly, it ensures that your messages are also aligned across all audiences so you are not, for example, saying one thing to investors and another to employees about the company’s future. (A big “bad” in our book!)

Track your hours. If you are spending more time chasing partnerships at the expense of talking to your best clients, something is wrong. If you track billable time monthly, track your hours spent marketing/doing PR and business development activities by category of audience. This is a great reality check to see how you are allocating your resources…and to assess where you need to rein yourself in.

Seek out “adult supervision”. This term was aptly coined by one client when describing the practice of entrusting someone with an objective viewpoint to keep you on track in the event you veer off the grid (see #1 above) in your communications. Make sure that person receives every single message you send out to each of your audiences. Ask him/her to be your auditor and not only critique the frequency and messages you send but also evaluate the overall “mix” of communications.

]]>Where Do We Start?http://carrickmarketingcommunications.com/where-do-we-start
Wed, 16 Mar 2011 19:47:05 +0000http://carrickmarketingcommunications.com/?p=313We are hearing that question a lot these days from entrepreneurs who seem to be coming out of the woodwork. Many of them started businesses during the downturn and are finally, after a couple of years of hard work, getting some traction. Having put blood, sweat and often tears into growing their businesses, they now have money to invest in marketing. But they often aren’t sure where to start.

The mistake many make is to start by thinking first about what we call marketing “venues”. The questions we hear often go like this, “Should I advertise?”, “What does it take to manage a blog?”, or “Do you know anyone who can design and build a trade show exhibit by next month?”. These aren’t bad questions, per se, but they are often mis-guided and/or mis-sequenced.

Instead of focusing on the venue, business leaders need to start by asking themselves who they need to reach. Once they define their audience, they can then decide upon the best venue to reach it. An intermediate – and absolutely critical step – is articulating the messages the business needs to convey to your audience. Only then can you figure out the most effective and efficient way of getting that message disseminated.

Think of it this way. A young opera star is not going to find his/her target audience at Lollapalooza (celebrating it’s 20th year this coming summer, by the way).

A recent McKinsey whitepaper, “Beyond Paid Media”, makes for interesting reading. The authors, David Edelman and Brian Salsberg, write about how we must change marketing mindsets to respond to new ways in which consumers perceive and act upon marketing messages.

Among their observations:

“While traditional “paid” media—such as television and radio commercials, print advertisements, and roadside billboards—still play a major role, companies today can exploit many alternative forms of media. Consumers enamored of a product may, for example, create “earned” media by willingly promoting it to friends, and a company may leverage “owned” media by sending e-mail alerts about products and sales to customers registered with its Web site. In fact, the way consumers now approach the process of making purchase decisions means that marketing’s impact stems from a broad range of factors beyond conventional paid media.”

The authors list several forms of media:
1. “Paid” – traditional advertising and similar vehicles
2. “Owned” – your company website, for instance
3. “Earned” – Facebook fan posts on your profile are one example
4. “Sold” – your company posts ads on other companies’ websites
5. “Hijacked” – activists or pranksters who use social media, for example, to damage your company brand

Their point is that marketers need to understand and think more strategically about the various forms of media and harness them to the extent possible. In the case of hijacked media, they need to develop what McKinsey refers to as “triage and action engines”.

It all makes perfect sense. However, what the experts at McKinsey fail to mention is the power of media relations – which can results in a third-party endorsement (or anti-endorsement!) of one’s products or services by, for example, a credible journalist. PR has changed much over these last few years but shouldn’t be overlooked as part of the overall marketing mix. I’ve seen more results from a mention on CNBC or CFO magazine than a tweet. Perhaps this is because I work with B2B firms; mostly consultants and professional services firms. True, PR has changed much over these last few years but shouldn’t be overlooked as part of the overall marketing mix.

To find the white paper and my posted reaction to it, click here. It’s definitely worth a read (and registering for, if you aren’t already on the site).

]]>Middle of the Road or Top of the Hill?http://carrickmarketingcommunications.com/middle-of-the-road-or-top-of-the-hill
Fri, 30 Jul 2010 22:50:30 +0000http://www.carrickmarketingcommunications.com/blog/?p=171There was a great article in the New Yorker the other week about what the retail industry has called the “great middle” – companies that strive to be everything to everyone. Guess what – they didn’t do very well in the recession with that approach. High end companies and also the companies (think IKEA) who, as the author describes it, are selling things that “aren’t bad and cost a lot less” all did relatively well compared to those companies who try to be all things to all people.

What can professional services learn from all this? One lesson, for those who have positioned themselves as providing high-end, highly-specialized advice, is to stay the course. And consciously and deliberately (is there any other way?) focus on targeting those buyers who will always seek high-end value. Of course, there are temptations along the way to take on work that pays the bills but isn’t really what you want to be known for doing. When you come to that fork in the road, proceed with caution. If cash flow forces a decision, so be it. But, if you are considering a permanent path down the “middle of the road”, consider this quote from the article that offers an interesting analogy for professional services marketers: ” The products made by midrange companies are neither exceptional enough to justify premium prices nor cheap enough to win over value-conscious consumers. Furthermore, the squeeze is getting tighter every day.” So, in terms of a sustainable marketing strategy, we’d rather emulate Apple than Sony or Dell.

]]>Silence Is Still (Often) Goldenhttp://carrickmarketingcommunications.com/silence-is-still-often-golden
Fri, 10 Jul 2009 21:21:12 +0000http://www.carrickmarketingcommunications.com/blog/?p=145In this day of blather, where everyone seems to be constantly compelled to use the media as the outlet for the most trivial news – prnewswire logs another press release roughly every two minutes! – we’re still believers in the power of silence.

That may sound totally counterintuitive…what PR professional in their right mind would tell a client to keep his/her mouth shut? Don’t get us wrong. We totally, absolutely, utterly believe that if you have something new to say that is interesting, provocative and new, you’ve got something truly newsworthy. But, if you haven’t got something relevant to say, don’t say it.
If you add to the piles of minutia and trivia being disseminated, through traditional media and via twitter and the blogoshere, no one will hear you. At best, you may elicit a raised eyebrow or a yawn.

This is why we’ve turned away work to create campaigns that really don’t say anything. Or to work on surveys about topics that no one really cares about. Or to promote products that, frankly, are not new, are not innovative and would challenge even the best spinmeister to make them seem fresh, interesting and/or germane.

“Use silence the way Old Master painters used white. The surface of a pearl, the shaft of light from a window, the glint on a chalice or a dagger” From the novel The Whole World Over by Julia Glass.

]]>Reining in the Cowboys: A Story About How to (Properly) Develop Products/Offerings/Serviceshttp://carrickmarketingcommunications.com/reining-in-the-cowboys-a-story-about-how-to-properly-develop-productsofferingsservices
Fri, 23 Jan 2009 01:57:03 +0000http://www.carrickmarketingcommunications.com/blog/?p=92The phone rang late in the day, just before sunset. A senior partner, with a maverick reputation, was on the line requesting a brochure for the annual client conference, three weeks away. “I need a piece”, he said with a Texas twang tempered by a note of urgency, “that describes a project I just wrapped up for Acme Corporation this past week. My team worked day and night for six months on this thing and we’re ready to do the same thing for all of our other clients. How soon can I see some copy?”

I had to bite my tongue to avoid saying, “Whoa, Nelly, let’s hold those horses.” It was the third time this same cowboy partner had come knocking at the marketing department’s door with the same story: his team had finished a one-off project and now he thought every client west of the Mississippi was hankering to buy it.

Now, we can pick his rationale apart until the cows come home for all the marketing fallacies it illustrates. For one thing, we all know that brochures do not sell work. Secondly, you can’t (and shouldn’t) ever assume that, just because one client buys a project, others will follow suit like a herd of cattle headed for the feed barn. Plus, there was no way this partner even knew whether the work was profitable for the firm.

So, in response, my team created a simple list of considerations now used as a preliminary screen to determine whether to pursue a full-blown strategy for promoting a new product or solution. The thirty or so questions help us probe product viability from a number of angles, from the micro (“Does our current buyer control the budget for this type of purchase?”) to the macro (“Does the offering fit with our overall strategy?”). So, far, it is helped us rein in the cowboys, and provided needed discipline prior to undertaking a formal product development process. Plus, we’ve spent fewer dollars and hours producing brochures that don’t amount to a hill of beans. I’m happy to share the list…just email me and I will send it to you.

]]>Branding Professional Services Firmshttp://carrickmarketingcommunications.com/branding-professional-services-firms
Wed, 10 Dec 2008 00:01:28 +0000http://www.carrickmarketingcommunications.com.com/blog/?p=3Coca-Cola, Kleenex, Lexus. Each of these brands has carefully crafted characteristics that consumers around the world can readily identify. Unfortunately, branding for companies that sell brain power – versus tangible products – is quite a different matter. Here’s a definition of “brand” that you may find useful as you position your professional services firm in the marketplace.

Recognize that, unlike a product, a professional services firm’s brand depends entirely on its people. Your people are your brand.

A brand is a promise to customers and encompasses quality, price, results, service, etc. In other words, for business services firms, it is entirely about your reputation.

Because it is intangible, your brand has to be supported by “proof statements”. You cannot merely say that you are the best. You must present evidence (such as client satisfaction scores, for example) to prove it.

Your brand must be flexible enough to encompass the varied things that you do. So do not limit your brand by defining it too narrowly.

Finally, your brand must reflect what makes you different from competitors. Unless you can clearly articulate your differentiators, your brand will be meaningless in the marketplace.